LEOMINSTER 
The cause of a blaze that destroyed the Columbia block on Main Street is still under investigation but the building will likely be torn down. Mayor Dean Mazzarella said a structural engineer looked at the building today to assess the extent of the damage.

“It will have to come down,” he said.

Crews were at the scene throughout the day. Deputy Fire Chief Gary Ranno said the fire started in the ceiling area below the roof in the rear and quickly spread through top floor of the building.

The American Red Cross of Central Massachusetts said it has assisted 38 adults and one child. Of those assisted, 35 were displaced from the apartment building at 65 Main Street and three were displaced from an adjacent building at 15 Columbia Street.

“My loss was at least $100,000,” said Susan Charette, owner of Chelsea's Boutique.

There are apartments and businesses in the block.

Ms. Charette was on Main Street with friends this afternoon, loading soaked and stained clothing into two vehicles. Fighting tears, she said was just going in to salvage jewelry from her store, but took the clothing when she was told by a person who owns a cleaning service he could clean them.

The Leominster Art Center was also hit hard. LuAnn Hume was hauling stacks of paintings out of the building with the help of a firefighter. The paintings looked in bad shape but she was hoping to salvage the frames.

“I've got a show coming up in Kennebunkport,” she said. “I need these.”

After getting a couple of stacks of paintings across the street to the sidewalk, she concluded the frames were damaged as well.

Artist Diane Gariepy said she was waiting for a chance to get into the art center to see if any of her water colors, painting and pen and ink drawings could be saved.

“From what I've seen so far, I can't tell,” she said.

David Murphy was on the sidewalk, taking photographs of the damaged building.

“It doesn't look like my accountant will be opening tomorrow,” he said. “I hope they have more than paper records.”

Mr. Murphy is a customer of Edward Jones Investments, which had an office on the first floor of the building.

Fire officials do not believe a raging six-alarm fire that destroyed the former Columbia Hotel building overnight is suspicious. Deputy Fire Chief Scott Cordio said the building is a complete loss.

“It doesn't seem to be suspicious right now,” Deputy Chief Cordio said. “It's probably going to be a complete loss.”

Investigators from the state Fire Marshal's Office and the Leominster Fire Department's Fire Prevention Bureau are trying to determine the cause and origin of the massive blaze.

The fire was reported about 10:15 p.m. at 65 Main St., in the three-story brick building that housed 28 people in 20 apartments on the upper levels, and businesses on the first floor, including Pizza Chef, Chelsea's, Edward Jones Investment, a travel agency, and the Sentinel & Enterprise.

None of the residents of the building was injured and the owner has placed them in a nearby hotel. Two firefighters suffered minor injuries about 11 p.m. when a rear wall started to collapse and the debris hit a nearby ladder truck. They were treated at an area hospital and released.

“We had a wall collapse onto a tower ladder in the back,” Deputy Chief Cordio said.

The fire started in 3-foot-tall space below the roof. There were no sprinklers in that part of the building and they were not required since no renovations had been done, he said.

The fire spread in the space and rushed to the back part of the building. Firefighters tried to stop the fire from spreading, but flames jumped what fire officials called a trench cut and the fire moved across the roof.

Traffic was detoured away from the fire scene today as firefighters continued to extinguish hot spots of fire on the third floor. Behind the building, rubble and burned embers from the section that collapsed covered two cars. The vehicles' windows were smashed along with the roofs.

Scott Glidden, a 49-year-old man living on the third floor, stood outside the building in complete dismay. His medication, belongings and wallet are all gone, he said.

“I lost all my IDs, everything. I don't even know how I am going to get identification,” he said, shivering from the cold. “The Red Cross is working with us.”

He was downstairs in the building talking to someone before the blaze. He heard firefighters and looked outside his door. They told him to get out of the building.

“I said I got to go get some stuff,” Mr. Glidden said. “They told me the building was on fire.”Firefighters from several area communities battled the stubborn flames last night in dropping temperatures. The fire quickly escalated to two alarms and by 11 p.m., it was a six-alarm fire that drew several area fire departments, including Gardner, Fitchburg, Lancaster, Lunenburg, Westminster, Devens, Ayer, Shirley, Sterling, Princeton and Townsend, and departments and support agencies continued to arrive at the scene in the hours that the fire raged.

“It's awful sad to see this; it's devastating,” Wayne A. Nickel, a Leominster city councilor, said last night. He praised the joint effort of all the departments working to control the fire.

Mr. Nickel said the building is owned by Andy Rome.

“He put his heart and soul into renovating this building,” Mr. Nickel said, adding the building used to be known as the Mason Hall.

An orange haze of smoke could be seen over that area of the city from Route 2; streets surrounding the Main Street area were closed to traffic.

Flames shot through the roof for several hours, as firefighters on ladders worked their way across the top level of the building, smashing windows. Meanwhile, ladder trucks and deck guns poured water onto the building in an effort to control the flames.

At one point, firefighters and firetrucks stationed at the front of the building moved away for fear the building would collapse. By 1 a.m., the street and sidewalks had begun to ice over, making for slippery walking conditions.

Meanwhile, a crowd of onlookers gathered on the sidewalk, some with cellphones and cameras in hand to record the fire.

Melanie Walsh of Fitchburg was on her way back from a night in Boston when she saw the smoke from Route 2 and decided to drive into the city to see where it was coming from.

Others like Sarah Dignard and Caitlin Casey, both of Leominster, heard about the fire from friends on Facebook and decided to brave the dropping temperatures to watch from the sidewalk.

Betzaida Obio came to the scene because her friend lived in one of the apartments.

“I've been looking for my friend,” Ms. Obio said. “I think everyone got out. I haven't seen her for hours.”

Meanwhile, a man who lived in the building worked his cellphone trying to find a place to stay, but told friends he had phoned that he was not leaving until firefighters found his cat.

Stephen Brassard sat on a cement wall across the street, offering a historical perspective on the building as a lifelong resident of the city.

“I live 20 yards from here,” Mr. Brassard said. “I saw a flicker of light coming off the building and looked out my window and saw flames coming from the roof.''

Mr. Brassard said the building was a downtown landmark, and aside from being a former hotel, it also housed a dance hall back in the 1920s and 1930s, and that part of the building was recently remodeled and refurbished.

One of the businesses reported destroyed in the fire was Dick's Barber Shop, owned by well-known city resident Dick Fontaine. Mr. Brassard said the barber shop moved there several years ago after a fire destroyed the previous building it was located in.

Adjacent to the building is the former Rialto Theater, which later became a recreation center and a YMCA, Mr. Brassard said. Now the building is home to a church, the Christian Life Center.

A fund has been set up for victims. The fund is at Fidelity Bank, 9 Leominster Connector, Leominster.

Donna Boynton, Scott J. Croteau and George Barnes of the Telegram & Gazette staff contributed to this report.